The present invention relates to a carton for packets of cigarettes.
The term "carton" is employed in this context to describe a rigid container, appearing typically as a rectangular parallelepiped with sharply defined corner edges and designed to hold several packets of cigarettes. Conventionally, such cartons are fashioned from flat diecut blanks of substantially rectangular geometry; the single blank presents a plurality of longitudinal crease lines that serve to define an intermediate longitudinal portion creating a first smaller flank face of the carton, also two longitudinal portions lying one on either side of the intermediate portion and affording two panels, each creating a larger face of the carton and connected to the intermediate portion along a respective longitudinal crease line.
The single panels are associated on the one hand with the intermediate portion and on the other with one of two longitudinal flaps connected each to the respective panel along a relative crease line and combining to form a closure.
Each longitudinal end of the blank exhibits two projecting end folds connected each to a relative panel by way of a transverse crease line, and an end flap connected to the intermediate portion likewise by way of a respective transverse crease line.
To erect the individual carton, the two panels are bent convergently through right angles along the respective longitudinal crease lines relative to the intermediate longitudinal portion, and the two longitudinal flaps of the closure bent similarly through right angles along the respective crease lines relative to the associated panels in such a way as to create a second smaller flank face.
With the blank thus formed initially into a tubular container, the end faces are completed by bending the sets of end folds through a right angle in relation to the panels along the connecting crease lines, and the end flaps similarly in relation to the intermediate portion, in such a manner that the two folds and the flap at each end are brought into a common plane and can be sealed together to secure the carton.
It has been observed that the amount of additional paperboard material needed per single blank in order to maintain well defined corners on a carton is disadvantageously wasteful, and in view of the considerable number of cartons turned out during a normal production run, it will be clear enough that the waste of material is significant and the costs of manufacture increased as a result.
The object of the present invention is to provide a carton for packets of cigarettes needing a quantity of material for its manufacture less than would be needed for a conventional parallelepiped carton of equivalent proportions.
A further object of the invention is to provide a carton for packets of cigarettes that exhibits a distinct visual superiority over the conventional parallelepiped carton.